Obama turns to historians to help set tone for 2nd term

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama has been looking to historians for guidance on how to shape his second inaugural’s words into a speech for the ages, eager to make good use of his twice-in-a-lifetime opportunity to command the world’s attention.

He will take the oath of office today in an intimate White House ceremony witnessed by family, and then again Monday at the Capitol before a crowd of hundreds of thousands on the National Mall. The crowd is expected to be much smaller than the record 1.8 million who packed the mall four years ago to see him sworn in as the nation’s first black president. But the estimates of 600,000 to 800,000 this time still would make it the largest attendance ever for a second presidential inauguration.

Obama’s inaugural address will be the centerpiece. The president will seek to turn the page on a first term consumed by economic turmoil and set an optimistic tone for four more years that will help define his legacy.

The president has spent weeks writing out draft after draft of the speech on yellow legal pads, aides say. Last week, he invited a small group of historians to the White House to discuss the potential — and the pitfalls — of second-term inaugurals.

Obama is expected to weave the history of the nation into his remarks. He is likely to make reference to two of the great American leaders he most deeply admires, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. The start of Obama’s second term coincides with the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the 50th anniversary of King’s March on Washington, and he has chosen to take the public oath with his hand on both of their Bibles stacked together.

“Their actions, the movements they represented, are the only reason it’s possible for me to be inaugurated,” Obama said of Lincoln and King in a video released Friday by the Presidential Inaugural Committee. “It’s also a reminder for me that this country has gone through very tough times before but we always come out on the other side.”

The president isn’t expected to delve deeply into the policy objectives he’ll tackle in a second term. Those details will be saved for his Feb. 12 State of the Union address.

But the tone and theme of Monday’s speech will set the stage for the policy fights to come. Obama is expected in some way to reference the Connecticut elementary-school shooting that pushed gun control to the top of his agenda. He may also speak of a need to tackle comprehensive immigration reform, another second-term priority, and to bring U.S. troops home from Afghanistan. He’s been hammering out the details for many weeks with longtime speechwriter Jon Favreau, who worked with the president on his first inaugural address and nearly every other high-profile speech he’s given since.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the president takes the responsibility of a second term “enormously seriously.”

“He believes that we have work to do, and he believes that both the agenda he has put forward so far and the agenda he will put forward in the future will help this country move forward in a variety of ways,” Carney said.

The president sought advice from a small group of historians during a dinner at the White House last week. Beyond just the mechanics of second inaugural addresses, the dinner focused broadly on how presidents manage their second terms, with Obama particularly interested in Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan.

Perhaps more than any of his predecessors, Roosevelt’s second inaugural address could serve as a model for Obama. Each man took office amid economic turmoil that eased during his first four years in the White House. When Roosevelt spoke to the nation after taking the oath of office a second time, he reported economic progress but cautioned that there was more work to do. Obama has often voiced similar sentiments, using the signs of improvement as his justification for re-election throughout the 2012 campaign.

Obama may aim for brevity in Monday’s speech. Still, he’s certain to speak longer than Lincoln, who offered just 700 words in his acclaimed second inaugural. Douglas Brinkley, one of the historians who met with Obama, endorsed the “brief is better” strategy. But he also said with Obama scaling back some of the grandeur of the inaugural celebration, there is an opportunity for his speech to become the focal point.

“This time around, I think the inaugural speech has to carry the day,” Brinkley said.

Posting a comment to our website allows you to join in on the conversation. Share your story and unique perspective with members of the azcentral.com community.

Comments posted via facebook:

► Join the Discussion

azcentral.com has switched to the Facebook comment system on its blogs. Existing blog comments will display, but new comments will only be accepted via the Facebook comment system. To begin commenting, you must be logged into an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. While we welcome you to join conversations, readers are responsible for their comments and abuse of this privilege will not be tolerated. We reserve the right, without warning or notification, to remove comments and block users judged to violate our Terms of Service and Rules of Engagement. Facebook comments FAQ

Join thousands of azcentral.com fans on Facebook and get the day's most popular and talked-about Valley news, sports, entertainment and more - right in your newsfeed. You'll see what others are saying about the hot topics of the day.